


Only For Her

by Neverlong



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mischa is the cat, Other, The cat is worth the read, are they friends or are they in love, explosive, her is the cat, not a slow burn but not really romance, romance kind of, she's Important, there's something about figure skating, what's the difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 19:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10815627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverlong/pseuds/Neverlong





	1. What a Pretty Girl

You never imagined that a famous figure skater could be so invested in the well being of your cat. Not that you could vouch for his apparent success, as you’d never cared much for watching grown-ass men dancing around on a block of ice.

Yuri told you that he didn’t care that you didn’t care.

“I’m only here for the cat,” he’d retort at your confused glare. The best part was when he’d barrage you with questions about her, and if you had been feeding her the canned food he would sometimes bring for her, so on and so forth. It hadn’t taken you long to decide that you were not very okay with your cat getting more guys than you.

“If you pay for the ceremony, I’d be happy to bless your marriage." You curled the words over your smirk. “You can move in together and finally stop taking up room on my couch.”

“I travel too much,” he groaned, grabbing her claws as they dug into his shirt.

You watched his arms flex as he lifted your cat above his chest, her tail flickering back and forth like the headlights on the street outside. You sat on the floor near an outlet to charge your laptop and drink some coffee. The similarly colored stains on your couch were covered up by the halo of pale hair spiraling from his head, but they were enough to convince you that you (and especially your cat) couldn’t be trusted with drinks near your furniture.

His sneakers were flung somewhere in the living room to hide among the blankets everywhere, his baseball jacket on your coffee table, his feet up on the arm of your couch as he draped himself over it to coo at your cat for being such a lovely lady. If he hadn’t been the one to bring her back home to you when your neighbor accidentally let her out (and utterly save your life, as you’d been a wreck without her), you would have shut the door in his face when he stopped by again—just to check up on her, he assured.

Besides, it didn’t help that your tongue couldn’t manage to form words when you saw him again. He was hot. And he was at your front door, asking to see your cat. Although you felt shafted at that last bit, you could mentally hear your friends’ chanting _SCORE_. If you were back home, your parents wouldn’t even know what to assume, but you bet that they would mentally applaud you for managing to snatch someone so obviously out of your league.

You frowned.

“Hey, speaking of traveling.” You shot him a cursory glance when he hissed. “She’s been grumpy lately, so don’t mess with her paws. _Speaking of traveling_ —aren’t you going to Berlin soon?”

He dropped his head to rest his cheek on your couch cushion, your cat flopping onto his chest with a lilting purr. “Yeah, so what?”

“I was thinking that I needed a break from Russian school. Studying abroad really takes a lot out of someone, you know.”

“Okay?” You scoffed at his blasé murmur.

“ _Okay?_ I guess I won’t tell you where we’ll be staying, then. Maybe Mischa will find a new boyfriend while we’re there.” You held your hand out and she lept from the bed she’d made of his shirt, strutting to you to rub her head against your entire arm. She mewed for attention.

Yuri was horrified. Not only that Mischa had left him for you, but also that you would keep her whereabouts hidden from him. “You didn’t say that you were both going to Berlin,”  
You shrugged with all the vapid energy you could muster, “I didn’t think you cared.”

Although he was silent, it did nothing to stifle the scowl you could feel emanating from him; you laughed at his reaction to your teasing. “It’s not like I was really going to not tell you. I figured I could take her to watch you wear a tutu on some skates.”

“I don’t wear a tutu!” his face was so red, and you felt the tides shift from your thoughts before. He really was too cute to resist!

“Well you at least wear makeup, don’t you? You’d make for a really pretty girl!”

Calling his temper _explosive_ was a bit cliche, but it really encapsulated the feel of his words whenever he poured them out on you about how skating was _masculine_ , and he _was a fucking world champion_ , and _I’ve got the world record for figure skating_ , etc. etc.

And you just laughed at him and his weakened ego, not because you tore him down a peg but because “I don’t care that you don’t care about figure skating” had abruptly become something more along the lines of a lecture in the strength, training, and perseverance it took to succeed.

You stuck your hands up, aggravating Mischa as she batted at your sleeve. “Hey, you don’t need to prove anything to me. I think it’s cute, that’s all.”

He startled at the sight of your flushed grin and thoroughly pouted when he grabbed his jacket and tugged the hood over his head, saying, “I’ll be busy packing and training this week, but text me your hotel.”

“Sure thing, Yuri.”

And when the door slammed shut behind your singsong voice, you tugged your cat on top of your laptop and watched your essay turn into a mush of letters. A car darted by your windows outside, and you leaned against the cool wall. One of the blankets near your foot was calling your name, and you tried your damnedest to grab it without moving at all before relenting and catching it on your toes. It was warm.

“You know, I think you need an intervention. You can’t seduce more guys than me; it’s against the code or something.”

She mewed a smartass retort.

 


	2. Alive

“Yeah mom, we’re fine.” You had to run Mischa’s gifted canned food under a can opener. It looked easy enough to use, but it. wasn’t. _working_. Just about to fling it in the sink and call the meal off, Mischa rubbed against your ankle. You sighed.

“What was that?” your mother quipped.

“I can’t get this can opener to work. I think it’s broken.”

“And you’re sure you can handle Germany?” you mimicked her taunting tone from the other side of the phone, jamming it against your ear with your shoulder. “I’m only saying that if a can opener is too much of a challenge for you—”

“I’m fine, mom. We’re fine. Wasn’t that why you got me this furball: so she could keep me company?”

“Your dad and I are just a little concerned,” she sighed, and you followed suit after banging the can against the counter. Mischa mewed her protest. “How was the flight?”

“ _Fine_ , mom, everything is _fine_.”

“Alright, then I’ll leave you to it.” You waited a few minutes to grab and hold the phone at eye level before, “Don’t forget to lock your windows and door.”

“ _Goodbye, mother._ ”

“Love you,” and she hung up. You set your phone down on the counter and groaned at Mischa’s angry stretches.

“Okay, you’re just going to have to suffer with your regular food. We have _got_ to get going or else we’ll miss your boyfriend.”

You didn’t mention to your cat how you were making sure that you looked nice for the meeting, too. Fretting over your hair, your makeup, your clothes—you wanted him to look shocked when he saw you, like it happened in cheesy teen romance movies. Because damn it, you cleaned up nicely and he needed to recognize your effort for him. Not only in the traveling and expense aspect, but also that you followed him to watch what you were sure would be the most boring experience of your life just to say that you supported him in something. What more could he ask for?

When you were sure that she was just going to sniff her food and whine for something better, you picked her up and carried her and a few of your things in your arms out of your hotel room.  
Since it was cold outside, you wondered if it was really a good idea to take her with you. Would she even be allowed in the rink or—or whatever it was called. What even happened for figure skating? Was it like a dance-off or did the skaters just go for it?

You were so preoccupied by the thought of Yuri in a tutu that you completely forgot to worry about where you were supposed to sit assuming you found and got inside the place, how exactly you would meet up, what would happen to Mischa if you froze to death on the way, and other useless things.

In fact, you were so engrossed with your thoughts that you almost missed the sight of a man waving directly at you.

Almost, because he plowed right into you to accost you with the sort of hug that was suffocating and all too sappy and you were gagging on the cologne that he had poured into his platinum hair or something. This wasn’t how the movies usually went…

“You must be Yurio’s girlfriend! It’s so wonderful to see you here,”  
And so of course you spluttered for words. Was this just going to become a thing where hot guys came running up to you because of your cat? “Uh,”

“Yuuri, come see!” He yelled behind him—in English?— and your cheeks flushed, but was Yuri really with this guy? You got the distinct impression of _puppy_ from him and prickled at it.  
“Ah, he’s probably getting ready to skate. I haven’t formally learned your name yet—”

“Wait, so how did you know who I was?” He dropped your wrist and started walking, nodding his head at you. You got the picture and followed beside him, petting Mischa’s ears as an apology for getting squished.

“He posts pictures of you all the time on social media. You look so different when you’re awake, but—oh, is this Mischa? How adorable,” she chirped her thanks while Yuri’s friend scratched behind her ear.

“Wait, what?”

“Hm? Oh, I said she’s adorable.”

“Before that!

“Here we are!” The guy practically shoved you into his intended audience—who was unfortunately not your Yuri. “Yuuri, this is Yurio’s girlfriend! Make a good first impression!”

“Uh.” Oh look, he already endeared himself to you. The brunet fixed his crooked glasses from the impact. After glancing from you to the other guy, he smiled shyly and bowed his head. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Katsuki Yuuri,”

You likewise introduced yourself.

“So, uh, how does this figure skating thing work?” Mischa mewed against your arms, biting into your sleeve when you tried to fix how you held her. “Can I, uh, give him a pep talk somewhere or something?”

“You’re not allowed back in the locker rooms, but you could probably meet up with him after the interviews.”

They had interviews for figure skating? Since when?

“You’re new to this, aren’t you?” the first one insinuated. You caught on rather slowly to the fact that your thoughts must have been spoken out loud for him to respond and flushed. “That’s why you wouldn’t recognize me, isn’t it? I’m Viktor Nikiforov,”

At your look of confusion, he gasped and set the back of his hand against his forehead in what looked like a fit of dramatism. Yuuri sighed at his antics. Did this happen that often?

“How swiftly I fall from relevance as newer stars take my place!”

“Hey, uh, dude I don’t know if you know this or not, but the only reason I’m even interested in ice skating is because some idiot crashed my house and converted me, so. You know.”

“Oh, it’s no problem, really. Viktor’s a little dramatic, is all. We were actually going in to watch Yurio’s performance, so you can sit with us, if you want.”

“Yuri...o?”

“It’s to help tell the difference between us, sorry.” He gave you a sheepish little laugh, and Viktor wrapped his arm through the crook in this Yuuri’s elbow. “Ah, we should get inside. It’s going to start soon,”

So you followed behind them with Mischa stealing all your warmth from the inside of your coat. From what you could tell, these two were probably the cutest couple you had ever seen—so much so that you found yourself gagging when you caught onto some of Viktor’s lines. You found yourself thinking, _maybe it’s not such a bad thing that Yuri’s so offhanded,_ before realizing that that meant that you were actually dating, which was a bit of a problem since he only cared about your cat.

You glared down at her and her happy purring. Why did she get all the attention?

And then something hit you like a basketball to the face. _What was Yuri posting about me?_ You would have to wait until you sat down and could rest Mischa at your feet or on your lap for a moment to check out his account, but you felt compelled to just stop walking and pull out your phone to see in the middle of the hallway.

There were announcements overhead in German, and you assumed it was a commentator’s opinion on some skating event. Your German was pretty nonexistent, but you could somewhat discern what was being said—or you at least pretend you knew and make yourself feel better.

“Yurio’s short skate should be after Otabek’s, but they’re only on Seung-gil’s right now so we have some time.” The names and terminology flew over your head, but the one thing you did know was that Mischa was tired of lying dormant. She clawed up your back, leaving you nothing but grateful that you still had a coat on. Your scarf, on the other hand, was both a play toy to her and a noose to you depending on her attitude at the moment.

“Are we almost at the seats?” You hissed when her paw missed your scarf and instead batted at your chin. It took a few laughs at your plight, a few more hallways and shuffling beyond people, and three flights of stairs before you could finally sit down.

“There’s Otabek,” Yuuri pointed, but you only saw a slight speck from your distance. You looked up and tried to discern the text on the large television to see if there was anything else to do while you waited. Yuuri and Viktor kept a ricocheting conversation about the current skater, asking you questions and explaining certain scores on the screen.

Your mind flickered back to the conversation earlier, and you pulled out your phone to do some quality research. The music overhead slowed to a halt, and the skater—Otabek—stood still on the ice. He had apparently done well, but you turned back to your phone to hurry up with your search.

_There._

Yuri Plisetsky’s instagram page. At first, it was everything you had imagined. Pictures of cats in all makes and sizes, figure skating, etc., etc., and then—

“Is that me?” you squinted at the pictures, and Viktor responded to your reaction.

“Yup! It’s how I recognized you,” he chirped.

“But that’s…”

It was a picture of you, sleeping over your laptop. You recognized the date: it was a memory of an essay last semester, when Yuri bought you some coffee as payment to meet with Mischa. And then another, where Mischa was waltzing over your keyboard and you were scolding her. When had he taken that?  
Then there was one of you attempting to fix the TV. He had said he couldn’t help you, so you yelled at him for sitting lazily on your couch with Mischa, but—

The descriptions were even better. You were expecting something sweet just so you could point it out as evidence that this couldn’t really be Yuri’s account. Most of them were reveling in your cat as an angel or some similar notion, but then you could sometimes catch ones about you. They were everything that you would expect from him, tagged with things like, “Look at this loser,” and other cute little comments.

“He does care,” you murmured, cheeks heating as new music began playing and the announcer fell silent.

There was Yuri, his hair in a ponytail, some weird costume on, but that wasn’t what was important.

When he skated out on the ice, he wasn’t exactly smiling. But he was happy. _No,_ you mused, _he was alive._

You smiled.

 


	3. Only For You

“Hey, stop biting my scarf. We talked about this,” you chastised, peeling Mischa’s claws from the yarn. She spat and bit at your fingers, forcing out a seething curse from you when she drew blood around your fingernail.  
  
Your high from watching Yuri come to life died without so much as a screech. “Okay, then I guess we’ll use the leash, hm?”  
  
You attached it to her collar and let her down, groaning when she took it as an opportunity to stretch out across the floor like a little shit. Grimacing, you picked her up again and let her claw viciously at the strands of your hair that she could reach. Her protests, though valiant, did not compel you to review your decision in the interests of the greater good of the rest of the—audience? Since when did so many people care about figure skating?  
  
And where did Yuuri and Viktor go?  
  
With a groan, you stopped in your tracks. A body behind you crashed into your back with enough force to nearly knock Mischa from your arms. If that wasn’t enough to make you feel like curling into a ball in the corner of the hallway, the man grunted something in German that you didn’t understand but were certain wasn’t a compliment.  
You tried for an apology, but it sounded more Russian from habit. The man shot you a look and shoved past you.  
  
“Hey, listen here, mister.” You stomped in front of him, stabbing into his chest with your finger while Mischa argued against your intervening in grabbing seats. “You should watch where you’re going if you don’t want to run into people. That’s just common sense. And what if you’d made me drop my cat? She’s tiny enough that a fall like that could break her back or something!”  
  
His unintelligible rasp was almost enough to convince you that he didn’t know anything you were saying. When a hand grabbed your elbow and removed your pointed finger from this man’s personal space, you whipped your head around to find what you could only guess was a security guard.  
  
 _Shit._  
  
He was saying something, but it was all gibberish to you. And then it seemed he caught sight of Mischa.  
  
“Hey!” A voice called out, your name following like a command for attention. Of course it was Yuri’s friends, come back to haunt your graceless removal. Yuuri was at your side, though, while Viktor apparently smoothed things over with the security guard. “Ah, I think he’s saying something about how you’re not allowed pets indoors.”  
  
“Well he needs to fuck off. She’s harmless,” you huffed. “Can’t we find Yuri first?”  
  
“He’s probably getting changed right now,” Yuuri offered, watching alongside you as Viktor animatedly plead with the security guard over your case.  
  
“When can I see him?” He seemed shocked by the intensity behind your statement, and Mischa mewed for some attention. “I need to, uh, show him the cat. You know, that she was cheering for him. Or something.”  
  
“I see,” and his smile told you everything he didn’t, causing your flush.  
  
“It’s nothing like that.”  
  
“Oh, I’m sorry, but I think it’s exactly like that. If you two aren’t already something, then maybe you should talk to him.” _Oh we’re something alright._ You looked down at Mischa. _I’m only here for the cat_.  
  
Pursing your lips, you retorted, “You’re wrong.”  
  
“But a bit of advice,” he glanced up at Viktor, who was still begging with the now offended security guard, “you should tell him how you feel.”  
  
“I feel like you’re a jackass,” you scathed. He laughed nervously at your words, even as more guards crowded around you three.  
  
“I can see how you two would get along,”  
  
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”  
  
When one of the guards grabbed your shoulder to direct you out of the rink, you shoved his hand away and were promptly expelled from the premises, kicking and screaming. You were pretty sure you gave someone a black eye from your animalistic protesting, even as Yuuri and Viktor calmly walked beside you—well, the latter calmly and the former anxiously.  
  
You probably looked like a hot mess from all the cat hair that Mischa had smeared across your shirt and coat, your hair tangled from her stupid little games, and now you felt like a complete idiot for being evicted from a skating event. _Ice skating_. You doubted the sport would ever agree with you.  
  
And you still wanted to actually see Yuri. You had no clue if his score was great or not, as the cheers for him had drowned out whatever Viktor had tried to explain to you, but you had to congratulate him for a job well done. Or something like that.  
  
“We need to get back in there,” you muttered. The building was huge, but there were still some security guards posted around the entrance. You felt like you could take all of them if it came down to it, just to get to your objective.  
  
What were you even going to do when you saw him? Confess your undying love to the jerk? You needed to think this through carefully, every word you would say. And what if he was just messing around with the pictures? _Why didn’t he show them to you before, anyway: that’s got to be a breach of privacy, even in Russia…_  
  
“Or!” Viktor exclaimed, wrapping an arm around Yuuri’s shoulders while his other hand ruffled your cat’s ears. “We can wait out here for him to come out. Nice and easy, okay?”  
  
You whined at that like a kid, and Mischa decided she’d have none of it. She batted at your fingers, stretching over your arms to try to free herself. When you shifted your arms to catch her head, she bolted to the side of the arena.  
  
“Not this shit again!” You cried as you took off after her, weaving between groups of people almost as often as you merely ran into them. So much for your lecture about _watching where you’re going._  
  
As soon as you reached the alley she was dead set on hiding in, a low whir broke the air around you. You jumped as a flashlight—headlight?—flooded the alley, and pressed tightly to the concrete wall of the arena. The shock as a motorcycle rode out of the darkness caused you to lose track of your cat, and you cursed your luck.  
  
How the hell were you supposed to find her in a country where you couldn’t even understand what was on a restaurant menu? You stalked to the back of the alley, as far as you could get without climbing a metal fence. Which you supposed you could do, but was your cat really worth it?  
  
“What are you doing here?” A familiar voice called out to you, weighing more as a command than a question. You turned your head to see Yuri, his hair still ponytailed up, though his blissed out face was replaced with his typical scowl. It was too difficult to stave off a blush anymore, so you just sighed and let it rage across your cheeks.  
  
“It’s Mischa,” you snorted. “I thought you’d want to see your wife, but she ran the first chance she got.”  
  
“What kind of an idiot are you for bringing your cat out here in the first place? I could have gone to see you both later.”  
  
“Both?” you echoed, a smirk softly curling your lips. You couldn’t resist the taunt, “I thought you only ever visited for the cat?”  
  
He muttered something you were sure was the equivalent of “shut up,” or something as equally harmless.  
  
Here he was, exactly as you’d been imagining earlier. Well, not exactly, but close enough to ideal. You doubted you’d be able to get the nerve to do anything once you let yourself calm down from everything, so you just _did_.  
  
Your hand fisted in his baseball jacket, something fierce running through your head and apparently over your face. Yuri glowered at it, watching your moves like some wary surveyor, but you couldn’t be bothered to explain yourself.  
  
Honestly, the first thing that came into your head when you kissed him was explosive. But then, that was too cliche. It was madness, really, that you would be kissing him after staring at him for so long and wondering—why the fuck hadn’t you done this before?  
  
His hair wasn’t in its ponytail anymore, either from your fingers or all the movement, and it bunched around where your foreheads met. You marveled at the way he bit your bottom lip, the warmth from him and the smell of sweat and exhilaration that clung to him and burrowed into your veins.  
  
And then his hand wrapped itself around your hair, pressing you closer even as you could feel your breaths petering out over his face, and wow, was this what it was always like to be kissed? Because you couldn’t remember anything anymore, except that you needed to do something: what was it?  
  
You shoved him off of you, only to freeze when you felt something brush against your ankles. Glancing down, you found exactly what you were looking for.  
  
You couldn’t help the grin that spread your lips, the drunken laugh that spilled from you, even as Yuri picked her up in his arms.  
  
“You’re a little shit, Mischa,” you cooed. “You planned this all out, didn’t you?”  
  
She purred at the attention from Yuri, who had quickly rediscovered how she adored being held at his shoulder.  
  
“I was thinking,” he murmured, uncharacteristically quiet. You expected his next words to be ‘maybe we could catch a movie sometime,’ or something similarly sappy. What you got instead was, “We could set our cats up. So that you’d stop saying I’m married to your cat or whatever shit you’ve been spouting.”  
  
“Your cat’s not good enough for her,” you informed him, stealing away with Mischa as Yuri announced every qualifying aspect of his cat. You could only laugh.  
  
You never imagined that some famous figure skater could be so invested in the well being of your cat. Or, what’s more, that he could handle how you kissed his cheek in front of all the fan made signs as you walked away from the skating rink. Without so much as a single complaint.  
Yeah. _Explosive_ your ass. He was just a jerk sometimes.

But only for you.


End file.
